Tribute
by FPinFC
Summary: 1 year post-finale (spoiler alert), Clark and Dean publicly honor their fathers. The story shows how various family relationships were impacted by the finale's events. Deans mother and stepfather visit, and sparks fly as long-buried hostilities surface. A story of healing and personal growth. 5 parts: Clark's story, Dean's story, War Zone, Tribute, Epilogue (Formatting corrected!)
1. Clark's Story

Part 1 - Clark's Story

Clark Lane sat in the front row of the auditorium, only half-hearing the buzz of thousands of voices around him.

He wiped his sweaty palms on his seat cushion. Again.

_I never dreamed this many people would show up!_

He didn't look around at the crowd. He was nervous enough as it was. But even without looking, he could hear that the turnout was tremendous.

There was one person here who understood his nervousness better than anyone else. Clark looked over at him again now.

Dean Parker seemed to sense his gaze, because he quickly turned to meet it. Dean's eyes were huge with the same nervousness that Clark felt.

Neither of them spoke. What could they possibly say?

_What have we gotten ourselves into?_

The crowd kept growing, and Clark's apprehension grew right along with it.

Dean finally spoke up. "I wonder where my parents are sitting. All of them"

"I thought you didn't want to know," Clark replied dryly.

"I know, I know, I haven't changed my mind. It really would make me more nervous if I looked at them while I was talking. But I can't help wondering...you know...if Dad and Marina sat anywhere near Mom and Glen."

"When you're staying with them, do you call your stepdad 'Glen?'"

"No, of course not. He was 'Dad' to me from the time I was eight years old. It would be pretty tacky of me to call him 'Glen' to his face now. Besides..." he shrugged, "...I love him. He's been a great father."

Dean started to take swig out of his water bottle, but changed his mind. "I don't wanna have to pee while I'm up there."

"Good thinking."

Dean turned and made another survey of the crowd. "I can't imagine how I'd handle it if I had to figure out what to call my two dads, if they were ever together. I've even had nightmares about it, especially when I found out that Mom and Glen were coming up from Dallas for the tribute."

"So why not call Greg 'Greg?'"

"Because I never knew him as that. He was 'Daddy' when I was little, and I couldn't have imagined him not being my dad, at least not until we moved so far away, and my mom started telling me we were never going to see him again."

_I can't imagine what that would be like._ Clark almost shuddered at the thought.

Dean didn't seem to have noticed. "I planned to call him 'Greg' back when I was working up the nerve to come see him for the first time as a teenager. After all, I was planning to cut him out of my life for good, and you don't call a guy 'Dad' if you're about to do that to him!"

Clark acknowledged the point.

"But that meeting...well, by the time the night was over...I realized I was proud he was my Dad. He deserved the title." Dean looked down at his hands. "I knew Glen by his first name back when he and Mom were dating, but he became 'Dad' as soon as they got married, and I know it means a lot to him. He still deserves to be called 'Dad' now, too, you know? He's been there for me, all these years, and I'm not even his kid. I can't demote him just because my birth father is back in my life."

"So, what are you going to do if the four of them finally meet up tonight? Are you going to call both of the guys, 'Dad?""

Dean shrugged. "I wish I knew. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what feels right when it happens. _If_ it happens." He rubbed his hands together as if struck by a sudden wave of nervous energy. "Between you and me, I'm much more scared of what will happen between my mom and my...Greg...than I am about what will happen between my two dads."

"Well, this can't really be the first time that Greg and Glen have met, can it? Even if you weren't there when it happened, at least you know they both survived the encounter, right?"

"That's just it. It IS the first time. My dad almost never came to Dallas, because Mom never let him in the door, never let me see him, threatened to call the cops on him...stuff like that. And it just so happened that, the few times he did come to our house, Glen wasn't there."

"So tonight would be their first meeting? Man, now I get why you're so knotted up about it."

"Yeah...but, to be honest, though my stepdad had learned to hate my dad from listening to my mother, he tried to be open-minded when I confessed that I'd gone to see Dad at headquarters, and that we'd gone to his place afterwards. I told him all about what I'd heard when he was on that call, and what it was like to talk to him. He wasn't happy about it, but he was reasonable. Didn't try to tell me I couldn't see Dad again. But when Mom found out...you can't imagine what a Jekyll and Hyde she pulls whenever the subject of Dad comes up. She got so screaming mad when she found out I'd sought him out, and even worse when she found out I planned to see him again. And you can't imagine what it was like when I decided to live with him for the school year. It was Armageddon over the phone. She actually threw the phone across the room, and my stepdad picked it up. He was the one who gave me permission to stay with Dad." Dean's expression was downcast. "It's never been the same between me and my mom since I got back with Dad. I doubt it ever will be."

They fell silent for a few moments while Dean looked around.

Clark spoke up first. "I guess you wish they hadn't come, huh?"

Dean didn't answer, but his eyes kind-of glazed over like he was tuning out the question and everything else.

The crowd noise only grew. Clark still didn't look around to see the extent of it, but it took an effort to avoid the sight. The stadium was huge, with countless rows of seats arranged for a good view of the large platform, which was set up at what was usually center ice. Giant TV monitors, normally occupied with sports closeups, now stood ready to make sure every eye in the house could see the faces at the podium.

Clark tried not to imagine his own face up there, seemingly a hundred times larger than life. It made him queasy.

A large banner hung over the platform, proclaiming the theme of their gathering.

"TORONTO: TRIUMPH AFTER TRAGEDY"

Canadian flags draped everything, especially the display set up at one end of the platform. There, in high honor, stood tastefully large photos of the First Responders who had died on the day of the bombings. All around them, though smaller, were scores of photos of the civilians who had also died.

Clark dragged in a deep breath. For the first time, it occurred to him to let those fallen heroes' courage inspire him for the task ahead. But then even that seemed to backfire.

Donna's face was there among the honored dead.

He'd never told anyone, but he'd always had more than just a high regard for her. He hated to think of it as a "crush," since that was such a juvenile word, but he wasn't sure what else to call it. Sort of like the way he still felt about Jules, though of course he would never dare to let on about that, either.

_This is not helping._

_Guess I'd better not look at that display again._

A question from Dean made him tune back in to the present. "So, you still haven't let your father hear your speech, right?"

"Right." Clark's stomach went all fluttery again.

"I haven't let anybody but you hear mine, either." Dean started craning his neck around for the umpteenth time.

"And you really never did tell Greg that your mom and stepdad were coming?" Clark couldn't imagine such a thing.

"No, I _told_ you that I would honor their wishes!" Dean replied with some irritation. "That was the only reason Mom was willing to come. She really doesn't want to see him, Clark."

Clark shook his head. "I still think that's crazy. I would have told him, and to heck with what they wanted. If they didn't know you told him, they would still come."

"Yeah, well, that's you." Dean surveyed the crowd yet again. "There's not much danger that Dad and Marina and Mom and Glen will end up close together in a crowd this size," he mused.

"Cut it out, Dean! If you don't drive yourself crazy, you'll drive ME there!"

"Ok, whatever." Dean rolled his eyes and gave Clark the little half-smile that somehow made him look more like Greg.

"Look at it this way, Dean. At least you know that both of your fathers will be here. I don't know if my one-and-only father will be able to make it."

"Aw, c'mon, what are the odds that something huge will go down tonight? The city plans to give all possible calls to the uni's. Your dad will be here."

Clark shrugged. "You're talking to the guy whose dad got shot seven times on the way to the hospital to see my sister get born! If anything can go wrong with him, it will."

"He still made it there," Dean pointed out.

"Beside the point," Clark drolled.

"Maybe, maybe not."

Clark didn't feel like debating the point, so he just shut up.

He certainly wasn't going to waste his time trying to find his parents' faces in the crowd. He'd followed Dean's example and asked his mom not to let him know. And besides, if he looked for her, he'd have to admit to himself how huge the crowd was.

And anyway, since his Dad was on duty, he wouldn't be sitting with Mom. He'd be lined up with the rest of the SRU officers, in front of the first dividing wall of the ground level section. That was worse, in a way. SRU didn't have that many teams, so it would be easy to scan them for a man of his father's distinctive appearance.

It would also be easy to see if his Dad's team got called away into action.

_I'm not going to look for him._ He didn't even want to admit to himself how disappointed and even angry he would be if his dad didn't show up, or couldn't stay, on this night.

_It wouldn't be his fault, but I need him to be here!_

He glanced at his watch, and his stomach turned over. _It starts in less than ten minutes! _

Dean looked back over at him, and his eyes were huge again.

_I'm glad we're doing our thing near the beginning of the ceremony. If I had to wait through three whole hours of this, I might die before the end. Best to get it over with._

Dean began looking over his speech again, though he already had practiced it to near-perfection with Clark a hundred times at least. Or so it felt.

Clark looked at his own practice notes as well, but he couldn't focus on them. _I hope I can focus on the teleprompter if I need to._

He killed time as best he could for as long as he could, until he couldn't stand it any more.

_How much longer?_

He was about to look at his watch again, but a new sound set all of his butterflies into overdrive. The loudspeakers had begun to blare the intro to the national anthem, and everyone was rising to their feet. Clark stood as well, of course, and nearly lost his breath at the size of the crowd he could no longer ignore.

"Oh, Canada..." he sang with the crowd, but then got choked up and only mouthed the words after that. The anthem had never hit him that way before the day of the bombings, but now it almost always did.

He glanced at Dean, who stood respectfully but seemed to make only a faltering attempt at the song. _Come to think of it, he's lived in America for most of his life. I don't know if he even knows the words._

The song ended, followed by a lengthy period of applause and cheering. Clark drew another long, slow breath and settled on a state that was half terrified, half coolly eager to get it over with.

People finally sat down, and the emcee took her place at the podium.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of Toronto, thank you, and welcome. It's such a pleasure to see you turn out in such numbers to observe the anniversary of Toronto's Day of Courage. You notice that I didn't say, 'the anniversary of the bombings,' because that's not what we're celebrating. We're celebrating heroism, renewal, hope, and courage. We're celebrating Toronto!"

The cheers went on for quite a while.

"As you can see on your programs, we have quite an impressive lineup for this afternoon. In addition to our honored speakers, there are many in our audience who hold a special place in Toronto's collective heart. We have many people here who were called upon to show great courage on that fateful day, whether as injured parties, good Samaritan civilians, or First Responders. As you can see if you look around, there are many uniformed representatives of Emergency Medical Services, Police Services, and the elite Police Strategic Response Unit in attendance here tonight. We in Toronto have so many wonderful citizens and officials to be proud of!"

Another round of applause ensued.

Clark couldn't help noticing that, when the emcee mentioned the SRU officers, she nodded toward an area straight ahead of the podium. Clark had kind-of hoped they'd be on the opposite side.

_It will be almost impossible for me not to see whether Dad's there or not, if that's where they're standing._ His stomach did funny things again.

The emcee took up her speech once more.

"The events of one year ago today affected all of us profoundly, and I'm sure each person here has a story to tell. I wish we could give time to each and every one of you to tell us your stories up here, but of course time would fail us. So, as you know, we asked the public, from school children to senior citizens, to write their stories down and send them to us. Students made a long project out of it, submitting multiple drafts to make their entries as good as they could possibly be. We sifted through everyone's entries for the ones we most wanted to share with you, and I must say, the choice was agonizingly difficult. So let me assure you up front that many, many excellent stories could not be presented on our platform this evening. But I am pleased to report that we have a publisher already eager to make a book out of tonight's stories as well as many more that we won't have time for tonight."

More applause.

"So, since we want to give all possible time to our stories, let me introduce our first sharer."

A photo of a very young child appeared on the monitors. Clark and Dean looked at each other with matching expressions of dread. When they'd been asked to submit photos, they hadn't imagined just how huge they'd look.

"In order to make things easier for our youngest sharers, we're allowing all minors to give their talks at the beginning of the program. Our first sharer today is Brittany Landess, age six."

Clark felt almost sick to think what horrors this innocent child might share, especially after what his father had told him about the collapsed daycare center. It turned out the child had been in there, but she seemed only to have been aware of darkness and fear, of a child who had been "stuck," of a teacher who helped them not to be afraid, and of a brave lady police officer who came and helped everyone get out.

Clark and Dean shared a smile, knowing that Jules was probably wiping tears away right about now.

The little girl finished with a few words about how everyone ought to be nice to everyone else, and then she was done. It was short, sweet, and a wonderful opening to the program. Everyone applauded generously, and Clark even forgot to be nervous.

The emcee introduced a ten-year-old next. He also spoke briefly, and it wasn't until his applause was almost over that Clark suddently realized he was next. His stomach dropped.

_Why didn't they put Dean ahead of me? He's almost a year younger! _

They were both seventeen, even if Clark's birthday was next month, and since "L" came before "P" in the dictionary, Clark was next.

_Don't be ridiculous_, he chided himself. _Best to get it over with now._

The emcee stepped up to the mic, and Clark suddenly imagined his father's voice in his ear. _Sniper breathing, Son, remember? I taught you how._

He slowed his breathing and felt the calming effect somewhat as he listened. But only somewhat.

Clark's picture popped up on the monitors. He avoided looking at them.

"Our next sharer has a very special and dramatic story for us, one that will take longer to tell than the previous ones...and believe me, it's worth every second. This young man has written with such eloquence and heart that I know you will be as moved as I was when I read it. Please welcome seventeen-year-old Clark Lane."

Clark felt oddly disembodied as he walked up to the podium. His feet were moving forward, but his insides seemed to have stayed in the chair.

The applause felt almost surreal. He'd heard plenty of it at his musical recitals and concerts, but from far fewer hands. Tonight he could almost feel the sound rushing at him.

_Sniper breathing, just like Dad taught you._

He took his place at the podium and decided that the applause was, after all, bearable. But then it suddenly stopped, and the deafening silence demanded him to fill it.

He was suddenly very thankful for the teleprompter. There were his words, comfortingly familiar. He found that his voice worked after all.

"On the morning of the bombings," he began, "I had driven downtown with my friend Dean and his girlfriend." He flashed a grin at his friend. "You'll be hearing from Dean later." That hadn't been in the script, and Dean would know it.

That one bit of fun directed at his friend helped him relax, and soon his story flowed more naturally. "I left Dean and Mira to run their errands, because I needed to drive to City Hall for a permit. I had just parked in the garage and turned off my engine when the City Hall bomb went off."

He paused for a moment, his emotions taking him by surprise. Maybe it was the stories he'd heard from the little children earlier.

"I don't really remember the blast. Not clearly, anyway. Mostly just a sense of sudden shock and confusion and fear at first, with a very loud noise. Sometimes at night, in nightmares, it comes back to me more vividly."

He paused again. "Doctors tell me that I was certainly knocked unconscious almost immediately. I was still in my car, buried under a huge amount of debris. I do remember beginning to fade in and out of consciousness, but I don't know how long I was unconscious before the first time I woke up."

For a moment he felt an urge to look for his mother in the audience, because he knew she would be weeping. She always did whenever anyone went into detail about the family's ordeal. But he resisted the urge, because he knew he'd never find her in this crowd.

_Grandma's with her. She'll help her through it._

"My first memories, like I said, were just brief flashes of consciousness, and they consisted almost entirely of darkness, confusion, and intense pain. After maybe the fifth time I woke up, I began to understand more. I still didn't have a clue what had happened, but I was finally beginning to think about survival, finally trying to assess my situation."

He took a sudden deep breath, because his need for his father's presence grew strong enough to break his heart. But, perhaps because the need was so great, he still couldn't bring himself to look.

"I remember becoming afraid that I was dying." He swallowed hard. "It was so hard to breathe...every breath felt like a knife going into my chest, and the air was so full of concrete dust that it made me cough violently...and of course that hurt, too." He paused again, feeling strangely guilty to be burdening thousands of people with his pain. The room was almost eerily silent, though he thought he might have heard muffled weeping. But perhaps that had been his imagination.

"I felt like I was drowning on dry land. And I suddenly came wide awake with the knowledge that I had very little time left to save myself, and no idea where I was or what to do."

He had to pause again. Something about the electric tension from thousands of listeners made the story thousands of times harder to tell than it had been in rehearsals with Dean.

"At this point, my mind zeroed in on one thing that I had to do. One thing that would bring help my way. One thing that would bring..." his voice broke, "...a hero to my side." He had to make himself breathe slowly again.

It was a very good thing that he could tell his story cold, because he couldn't focus on the teleprompter at all. He was back in the darkness and the need.

"For most people, the advice is to call 911, but that wasn't the number I wanted to call." Another pause. "I knew, all the way down to my bones, that I needed to call my dad."

And then his eyes obeyed a heart that could no longer be denied. He snapped his focus to where the SRU officers stood, and it took him only a few seconds to find his father there.

_He's here! He's here!_

Now that Clark had found his father, he couldn't look away. He spoke every word into those eyes, though from this distance it was hard to say how clearly he could really see them, and how much he was imagining.

He continued, his voice suddenly stronger. "I'm a teenager, and I don't always see eye to eye with my father. Sometimes things have gotten pretty unpleasant. But in that garage, I needed my Dad." His voice broke again. "And I haven't told him this before, because for some reason I wanted to say it to him here."

He looked down, cleared his throat, and shifted his weight. When he looked up again, the crowd vanished, and only his father remained.

"Dad, you're my hero."

His father's expressive face filled with more emotion than Clark knew how to bear. Tears flowed freely from his dad's eyes, but he never even tried to break their eye contact.

Clark finally had to look away first. He had a job to do here, and the newest round of applause had ended.

He needed several long moments to find his voice again. "The problem was, I was crushed in there, I couldn't breathe well, I couldn't see anything, and my phone was who-knows-where. I needed my Dad, and I had no way to get a hold of him, and not much time left. But it was life or death, so I started struggling to free one of my arms a bit, and started groping around to try to find my phone. I could only try with one arm, because the other one was too badly injured. Every move I made hurt so bad, but I had no choice. And I also had a lot of luck, because I found my phone at last, and it still worked."

He looked and saw that his dad still wore his heart in his eyes. Once again Clark had eyes for no one else. "I called my dad then, and let me tell you why. My father is an officer with the Police Strategic Response Unit, the SRU. So it didn't matter that I couldn't remember where I was. I knew he would move Heaven and Earth to find me."

His dad thumbed tears away, but kept his gaze steady.

"It didn't matter that I could feel myself drowning in dust and pain. I knew my dad wouldn't let me die. So I fumbled with my speed dial, and I called him."

Clark smiled a bit. "Now, you have to understand my relationship with my dad. He says it like it is, or at least like he sees it. He's not exactly subtle."

His dad laughed a little; a fragile, heartbroken laugh.

"He and my mom had been terrified for me ever since the bombings began, because they hadn't been able to get a hold of me. Once they found out from Dean's dad that I'd gone for a permit, they got really scared, because they knew I would have gone to a government building. I think my dad, in the midst of all of his rescue work...including things like triage, supporting the team member who rescued the day care children, that sort of thing...in the middle of all of that he'd tried to convince himself that I was just zoned out with my headphones on and unaware of the fact that my city was blowing up around me. He wanted it to be that. Hoped it was that. He was prepared to be good and mad at me for scaring him and my mom like that. He'd tried to convince her of that, too, you know, over the phone, in between dealing with broken bodies and trying to figure out who was doing this to our city and how to stop him."

He'd gone off script a long time ago, but nobody, not even the emcee, showed any concern about how things were going.

"Of course, I didn't know anything about the bombings. I still didn't understand that I'd been in a bomb blast myself. But I still wasn't surprised when my father's first words over the phone were...and please excuse me...'Where the hell are you?'"

Everybody laughed, and his dad looked away for the first time. He seemed mildly embarrassed, but when he looked back he was smiling through the tears that still shone in his eyes.

Clark noticed that many of the audience members near the SRU officers were looking at them to see if they could identify his father. He doubted that they had any problem figuring out who his dad was, even though others on the team were tearful, too. The officers were all looking proudly at his dad now, and those on either side of him each kept a brotherly or sisterly hand on him.

Clark began to love this moment, this precious time when thousands could witness this hard-won love. In this moment it was almost like...like the magic he sometimes felt when he gave a concert. When he played, sometimes a mystical moment came when the music seemed to become a living thing that reached out into the audience and connected them to him in a way that transcended anything else he'd ever experienced. His teachers told him it was an extraordinary gift that he had, and he yearned for that connection every time he played. It didn't always happen, though.

He certainly hadn't expected it to happen here, with his words instead of his music. But it had, and the love between himself and his father seemed to have been picked up and resonated by the audience into something greater than he'd ever imagined.

But he needed to go on with his story. "At first, I could hardly get any words out at all. My voice almost surprised me, because it didn't sound like me. I remember telling him that I couldn't move. I'm not sure what else I said. But I remember his voice filling with tears when he asked me if I was in City Hall. And that rang a bell. I realized that he was right, and I told him that's where I was."

He could see the teleprompter scanning ahead to get to this point in the script, and he figured he'd better get back on board with that so he didn't take up everyone else's time.

"From that point on my dad was zeroed in on me. He dropped everything to race to my rescue. Along the way, while he was driving, he kept talking to me over the phone. I will always treasure the words he said, about loving me and being proud of me. It's not that I hadn't heard those things before. My dad's always been really good about saying those things..._most_ of the time." He heard a few chuckles because of how strongly he'd emphasized the exception. "But there, in that desperate situation, those words meant even more than usual."

"He also reminded me of what he calls 'sniper breathing.' My dad is the city's top police sniper, so he knows all about slowing his breathing down in order to keep his hands steady, calm his heart rate, and even slow down bleeding in an emergency. That was what he wanted me to do. He told me to slow down my breathing, and I worked on that. But I could feel myself losing consciousness again, and I couldn't talk anymore. It just hurt too bad, and I was so weak."

Suddenly Clark knew that he had to abandon his script again. He'd had no intention of mentioning this next detail, but now he knew he had to.

He couldn't look at his dad during this part.

"But my dad wasn't the officer closest to my location. SRU officers are constantly in touch over their headsets, so by now everybody knew my situation. Officer Donna..." he paused, choked up. "...Donna Sabine was one of a group of officers who got to my location first, along with a friend from EMS. They helped narrow down my location within the garage, and actually found me right before my dad arrived. They couldn't get to me yet, because I was still in the car, buried under all of that rubble. But at least my dad wouldn't have to waste time trying to find where I was buried. But the sad thing...the sad thing is..." his voice broke badly, and he had to struggle for several long moments to get his emotions back in check. "When my dad got there, Donna had to go back to the search for the bomber. The bomber killed her less than an hour after she found me. That's her picture over there."

He pointed back at the Wall of Honor on the platform. Donna had been the only female First Responder to lose her life that day, so no one would have any problem figuring out who he meant.

"She was a special person. I had met her at a few SRU social events, and just from those few meetings, I could tell why my dad and the whole team thought so highly of her. She had been part of my dad's team for several months, and now she was heading a team of her own. My dad had even walked her down the aisle at her wedding less than a year before she died, because he was the closest thing she had to a brother. And," he repeated, "she was killed right after she found me."

He had only glanced at her picture when he first pointed it out to the audience, but now he turned back to it, hardly knowing what he was about to say. "Thank you, Donna. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to say it to you in person." He wiped his face as he turned back to the audience. Nearly everybody he saw was weeping with him. "And Hank, if you're out there, I hope...I hope that somehow you'll find some comfort in the honor that we do her tonight."

The audience broke into applause, and Clark felt grateful for the chance to pull himself together some more.

He still didn't dare to look at his dad, or anyone else on the team, for that matter. He knew he was salting their wounds, and he could only hope that it was worth it.

After a moment he glanced over at Dean. His friend was wiping away tears along with everyone else, and Clark felt sorry for him. _He's got to get up here and talk next!_

When the applause died down, Clark felt ready to go on. "I do have to apologize to my fellow sharers, too. I've taken up more than my time, and I'll try to do better."

Several voices shouted out that he shouldn't rush, and that the program should just be allowed to run late, and similar things. He looked back at the platform, and the emcee nodded encouragingly. Evidently, he was okay. _The little kids probably went short._

"All right...well...after my dad arrived, I'd already been buried for such a long time that I was really fading fast. I was back to rapidly moving in and out of consciousness, and, well, the fact is... I was dying. But sometimes I was aware enough that I could hear my father's voice shouting my name. I could tell that it wasn't just coming through my phone. He was in the room with me, and that comforted me a lot."

He cleared his throat.

"I passed out completely before they got me out. I don't remember when they actually got to me, which is no surprise because I was almost gone. I wasn't breathing when my dad finally got his hands on me to check on me. He told me later that it was the worst moment of his life when he found me that way."

He finally dared to look at his father again, and he saw what he had expected to see. Despite keeping his professional bearing, his dad's face was not at all the face of a cop. It shone with a love that was agony; an agony that was love.

The rest of the team didn't look much better.

_I hope the team doesn't get called out on any sort of emergency. They're in no shape for it. _

"They gave me oxygen and I came around pretty quickly. My dad said later that it was a good thing I came around as quickly as I did, because he felt like his heart had stopped, and it didn't start again until I started breathing again."

He resigned himself to a permanent lump in his throat. It just wasn't going to go away.

His dad seemed as deeply moved as Clark had ever seen him, though still keeping his decorum with his physical posture.

"When they got me out of the car on a backboard, and got an IV into me and all of that, I got a burst of strength...temporarily. And here's the thing...somehow, I don't remember how, but I must have overheard enough to make me understand that I'd been the victim of a bombing. So when my dad started to get into the ambulance with me, I told him that I wanted him to go back to work, back to policing. He said, "I'm not going anywhere, Buddy." But I insisted, I told him he needed to go catch the guy who had done this. So eventually he agreed and went back to work, and the ambulance took me to the hospital. I barely remember much of the trip, or much of the time before they took me into X-Ray and my mom met me. That brief conversation with my dad had taken everything I had to give. By the way, it turns out that I had five broken ribs, a broken wrist, a collapsed lung, a broken leg, and more."

The talking was easier now, but he knew there was still one more very emotional push ahead of him.

"My dad still had more important work to do that day than I could have imagined at the time, and in retrospect, I'm so glad I didn't keep him with me. But you'll be hearing more about that from my friend Dean in his talk, which is next." He glanced at Dean, hoping he'd see his friend more pulled-together than the last time.

Dean was definitely on the emotional side, but Clark figured he'd be ok.

"My dad and my mom and my friends were a huge support for me while I was in the hospital and going through rehab. During those months, I had a lot of time to think about everything that had happened, and I kept wondering about one thing more than others."

He looked back at his dad. "Being a cop's kid has some difficult challenges. One of the tough parts is never knowing if your dad is going to miss important events because he had to work. My dad missed a lot of birthdays, a lot of piano recitals, a lot of concerts, even some Christmases. And it's easy to resent that sort of thing when you're a kid, because you really don't understand the big picture."

Clark turned his attention back to the audience. "So anyway, like I said, though I was really glad in hindsight that I had kicked my dad loose to go back to work, I kept wondering _why_ I had done that. I mean...at that point, when I had just been rescued, I had no idea the city was under a coordinated attack. I had no idea that lives were still in danger. What I did know was that my father...my hero...had come to my rescue, and had every intention of staying there with me. _With me_! Remember what I told you. He'd missed a lot. You'd think I would have grabbed the chance to keep him with me then, when he was insisting on staying anyway. What kid doesn't want his parent with him when he's broken up and heading to the hospital to face who-knows-what kind of ordeal?

"Why did I send him back to work? For some reason, this question kept coming back to me, over and over during the months that I was recovering, because I felt that the answer was important somehow."

He took a long, deep breath, and then turned to speak directly to his father.

His dad must have sensed that this would be a very personal address, because he seemed to come to full attention with his posture and his heart-filled eyes.

"Dad, I figured it out. I understand why I sent you to work, even though I used to resent how often your work took you away from me. It was because there, in that garage, for the first time, I understood what an emergency really was. I understood suffering. I understood the big picture. I may not have known about the other bombings, but I knew that the bomber was dangerous, and that Toronto needed you."

His dad swallowed hard.

"I used to know, in theory, that Toronto needed you, but I resented it because I knew I needed you, too. It wasn't until I was broken and desperate, needing rescue, that I understood a whole new meaning of the word 'need.' I get it now, Dad. I get it."

His father remained very straight in his posture, but he brushed away more tears.

"In that moment, I guess I knew that I had a contribution to make to the city's well-being, even though I was lying on a stretcher. I wanted to serve Toronto too, to give this city my best. And the best thing I could give this city, Dad, was you."

The applause was deafening.

Even dad's posture was starting to give way a bit, now, and his breathing didn't look much like a sniper's.

"So, in closing, I want to tell you the same words you so often tell me. I love you, Sergeant Ed Lane...Dad...and I'm so proud of you. And I'm so glad that Toronto had you and your team that day."

He stepped down off the platform to thunderous applause. People rose to their feet by the thousands, and Clark was now weeping freely.

He also was not walking back to his seat. It hadn't been in the script, and it probably wasn't what the SRU expected for its officers in attendance that day, but Clark walked back towards his dad.

And his dad met him halfway.

Cheers erupted over top of the applause as father and son wrapped each other in a lingering bear hug. Both the hug and the applause seemed to go on forever. The noise almost drowned out his father's words of love, spoken straight into his ear.

When they finally broke off their hug, his dad did that other thing he so often did; cupping the back of Clark's neck with his large hand, and placing a single kiss on the top of his head.

They remained in this hand-to-neck hug for a few more moments, and then his dad turned away to rejoin his team. Total strangers reached out toward him as he walked, and he returned the touch of a few hands. He was still wiping tears, and so was Clark. But it had been time for the moment to end, and it was okay.

The applause was dying away at last, and it stopped completely when Clark got back to his seat. But all the way back to his seat, total strangers had been reaching out to touch him, too.

He hardly knew how to absorb it all.

Dean hugged him, and he returned the embrace wholeheartedly.

And then the emcee began to speak again.


	2. Dean's Story

Part 2 - Dean's Story

Dean had never before known that beauty could break his heart. But watching Clark and Ed hugging in the aisle after that powerful talk...well, he didn't know what to do with the feelings that overflowed right now. But he felt no awkwardness for his tears in a room full of equally demonstrative people.

The emcee sounded shaken when she finally started to speak again. "Thank you so, so much, Clark Lane, and you too, Sergeant Ed Lane. That was a moment that none of us here will ever forget." She paused in deference to a smattering of applause. "I want to assure you that we are willing to have our talks go a little bit over schedule, that is, if you are willing, because these stories so desperately need to be told. And also I would like to say that, if anyone ever makes a snide comment about 'having no hope for today's youth,' none of us who heard from young Mr. Lane today will ever be inclined to agree with that assessment."

More applause.

Dean felt extremely grateful for the additional time to work on pulling himself together.

"Now, please allow me to introduce our next sharer, Clark Lane's often-mentioned friend, 17-year-old Dean Parker." His photo now filled the screens.

Clark gave Dean an encouraging thump on the shoulder, and Dean rose to walk to the platform. The walk seemed to take much too long, until he got there and found he wished it had taken longer.

_Clark seemed to relax after doing something impromptu,_ he remembered. So he turned his eyes back to the SRU team. He felt a sudden stab of pain that his father wasn't in that group, in that uniform any more, but he stifled it for now.

"Eddie..." he addressed Clark's dad, who immediately gave him undivided attention.

"...I wish I'd learned some of that sniper breathing from you, like you taught Clark. I could use it right about now." Of course, he really had heard about it before, but he thought the joke would do him good right now.

Ed grinned widely at him and held up 4 fingers, which he knew meant "4-count breathing." There were a few chuckles from the audience, too, which did help Dean relax.

"I don't really know how to follow Clark's speech," he began, still off-the-cuff. "We practiced it over and over, but somehow it's not the same when you can feel the emotions of thousands of people reflecting your own back to you. So thank you, Toronto, for being so open to what we're sharing tonight."

By the time the ensuing round of applause had died down, Dean felt remarkably comfortable in front of that crowd. For this day, they were all friends.

"As you probably remember, Clark's story began with him dropping me and my girlfriend Mira off for some shopping downtown while he drove to City Hall. We were just wandering around, holding hands and looking at stuff, when we noticed a lot of people crowded around a TV in a store window. They looked upset, so we went over to see what was going on. In horror we watched the news of the first bombing, at the Health and Welfare Building, along with the news that the SRU had just defused a bomb at the 911 call center."

He paused and checked his prompter, though he knew where he was.

"I watched with two very different kinds of fear, plus a lot of pride. Let me explain. I felt the fear that all Torontonians felt, but I also felt afraid for the safety of all of the SRU team members that I know and love. Clark's dad, Ed, has become like an uncle to me, but I had an even closer tie, and that's because of my father, Sergeant Gregory Parker. In case you don't recognize his name, the committee has given me permission to jog your memories. This is my dad." He pointed up to the monitor, and then his father's inspiring speech from the day of the bombing played through in its entirety. There were cheers and a smattering of applause the moment the audience recognized his dad's face, and many rose to their feet. But then everyone grew quiet to listen. When Dad's speech ended, the ovation was tremendous. It seemed that everyone remembered how much his Dad had comforted and strengthened them that day.

"You can't imagine how proud I was of him when I heard that his team had defused the 911 Center bomb, and then again later, a hundred times more, when he spoke to our hurting city with such courage, compassion, and inspiration."

More applause.

_I'm so glad that Mom and Glen are here to see this!_

"But you can imagine, too, that I felt very worried for my dad, his team, and everyone else I've been privileged to know who runs toward the danger that everyone else runs away from. Knowing and loving my dad, and Eddie, and Spike, and Sam, and Jules, and Leah..." he turned to face the photographs, "...and Donna..." he swallowed the lump in his throat. "...knowing them added a whole new category of fear for me that day."

"While my girlfriend and I stood watching the news in the storefront, our world was suddenly shaken by the loudest noise I'd ever heard. It shook the ground. We turned instinctively, and we saw the huge explosion at City Hall just a few blocks away. Suddenly, the danger wasn't at all theoretical anymore, and I was _really_ scared.

"I started calling my dad on his cellphone, but he didn't answer. I knew it was probably just that he was too busy working, being in charge of the whole team that was trying to put a stop to this nightmare and bring the bomber or bombers to justice. But even so, it scared me even more when he didn't answer my second call either. Mira and I just milled around with the crowds, not sure where to go or what to do. Like Clark, I knew I needed my dad, but at first I couldn't connect with him.

"When he finally did answer my third call, I'd never been happier to hear anyone's voice in my life. But he said to me, "You guys are still in school, right?" And I had to remind him that school was out that day, and that we'd gone downtown. That really worried him. He asked about Clark, and I told him he'd gone to get a permit, and that worried him even more, of course. I knew he would pass that info along to Eddie...Clark's dad."

He glanced over at Clark, who gave him an encouraging nod.

"Dad told me and Mira to go immediately to SRU Headquarters, but not to go into any other public buildings on our way there. So that's what we did, running as fast as we could. It took a while from where we were, and we were pretty breathless when we finally arrived.

"When we got up to the SRU floor, we saw that Winnie was the dispatcher on duty. She's pretty cool..."

A few chuckles interrupted him, and he almost blushed. He hadn't meant _that_ kind of cool.

"...so, she turned the team's audio feeds onto speaker mode, so we could hear everything too. But I couldn't have imagined the sorts of things I was about to hear."

Now he started to feel shaky, but he pressed on.

"I heard lots of things that made me so proud. I heard the team brainstorming, discovering clues and trying to interpret them and make them all fit together. Officer Jules Callaghan had been injured while rescuing the daycare center children, so she was assigned to full-time intelligence-gathering, profiling, and generally figuring things out. I got to hear her and my dad talking a lot, and they amazed me.

"I was also incredibly proud to know Spike that day, because it was awesome to hear him working. Spike is the nickname for officer Michelangelo Scarlatti. It makes me feel bad that, if I showed his picture up there, not nearly as many of you would have known who he was. But Toronto, you owe more than you can imagine to that man." He looked over at the SRU team and saw Spike ducking his head with a clear mix of embarrassment and pride. When he looked up again, his face shone, and he was smiling shyly.

"Knowing Spike, he's probably glad not to be that well known. He's a humble guy, like they all are on that team, and he's not in it for the praise at all. But what you can't imagine is hearing what I heard that day...four different parts of the team split off to deal with four different bombs at once, in four different parts of the city, and hearing Spike talking each of the other three teams through their own bombs while he also dealt with disarming one of his own. And that wasn't even all of the bomb defusing he did that day. Toronto, you and I can't even imagine what that day would have been like without him."

Applause filled the air, and many audience members turned back to try to pick Spike out of the team. With all of the backslapping going on back there (within the limits of decorum, of course), there wouldn't be any doubt. Besides, his blush was visible even from the podium.

But he was beaming with joy, and Dean loved to see it.

"I had already decided that I wanted to be a cop after getting reacquainted with my dad at age 16, but this day elevated my desire into a passion."

More applause.

"Yes, I said, 'getting reacquainted with my dad,' because between the ages of six and sixteen, I never got to see him. My parents had divorced, and my mom and I had moved down to Dallas, Texas. My mom met a wonderful man down there, Glen Harnet, who became my new dad when he married my mom when I was eight. I am forever grateful for all that Glen has been, is, and will be in my life as my dad. Nothing will ever change what we are. We're family."

Right now he wished he could see them.

"I've never had a sibling, but my friend Clark had the somewhat unusual experience of getting his first sibling late in his life, right after he turned sixteen. It was interesting to watch as that longtime family of three became a family of four, and relationships had to change, stretch, and grow. At first it was hard in some ways, I'm sure, but in time they proved the old saying that the heart doesn't divide love between people. It just grows room to add more love. And that's what happened when I got reacquainted with my birth father, Greg Parker. My heart has grown immensely because of the wonderful new relationship I've been privileged to build with him, and also with his whole team full of awesome people that I never would have known if not for him. I'm a lucky, lucky guy to have two such terrific dads."

Dean was glad for the applause break. It had been scary to say all of that, but he hoped to build some bridges with it.

He glanced again at Clark, and they shared a smile. Clark knew how nervous he'd been about it.

"But that day's events reminded me that my plans to be a police officer would not bring me all adventure and glory. I heard Ed Lane and the others reporting the dreadful tragedies they were seeing as they assessed the wounded and the dead. I heard the terrible sound of the EMS Building bomb going off, when we all thought officer Sam Braddock was still trying to defuse it, and we all thought he was dead. He'd just gotten married to officer Callaghan that very morning, and I could hear her over the speaker, sobbing because she thought she'd become a widow on her wedding day. Turns out that he was okay, though.

"I also heard Ed Lane's agonizing search for Clark under the rubble. I thought my heart would break right along with his. And the relief when we knew Clark would live was amazing.

"But it wasn't all happy endings for the SRU. I heard Donna Sabine's voice, reporting to my dad everything that she was seeing and hearing. I heard the terrible moment when they all realized that she and the officer with her...his name was Jimmy...had been led into a trap. I heard my father frantically ordering them to get out of there NOW...and then I heard the bomb go off."

He needed a break, and the audience kept absolutely silent as he composed himself. "I was really sure there would have to be a happy ending, like there had been for Sam and for Clark, but it was not to be. My father was grieving...I could hear him...even before he went into the building where the bomb had exploded. I know he went in because he was hoping against hope, but the firefighters who went in before him dashed those hopes. And then I heard them give him even more terrible news...he'd been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. It had been a dirty bomb. Imagine how I felt when I heard that!"

Another pause for self-collection.

"I felt absolutely sick about all of it, but I couldn't believe the calmness in his voice. He explained his situation to the team, gave them their orders for while he was out of touch in decontamination, and even spent a few minutes talking with the team about what they'd learned from the trap that they'd been lured into, and what new direction the investigation needed to take. I still can hardly believe the presence of mind that all of those officers showed under such terrible stress."

The audience clapped again.

"I should tell you that, at this point, Ed Lane rejoined the team because Clark had turned him loose. If Clark hadn't done that, the team would have been temporarily without both of its lead officers.

He cleared his throat.

"My dad came out of decontamination before long, and it was wonderful to hear his voice over the radio. Oh, I forgot to mention that Winnie and I had pulled together a spare uniform and equipment, including another headset, and had them sent to my dad so he could get back in business right away. It felt good to be able to do something to help in a small way, and it taught me something important. I learned that doing your duty, pitching in to help, can help you get through the pain. That is, after all, how the officers were getting through their pain, too. It really helps, and I hope to remember that lesson all throughout my life."

Brief applause.

"But if I thought things were hard before, I couldn't imagine how bad it was about to get. My dad, of course, had been thinking hard about everything. By now the team knew who the bomber really was, and how many bombs he had made. All they had to do was figure out where he was, and where he'd placed the tenth bomb, the only one they hadn't yet found. I heard the moment when my dad figured out that the bomb was probably hidden right there in the temporary hospital at Fletcher Stadium, right where he was, and where so many helpless people were receiving treatment. He knew that he had to assemble teams, and also go look for it himself."

Dean's breathing began to come a little short.

"I remember my stomach feeling sick when I heard officer Callaghan warn my dad that the bomber might be hiding nearby. It got worse a few seconds later when I heard Ed Lane warning my dad that this last bomb would almost certainly be 'dirty,' meaning radioactive. I knew now, because of Donna and Jimmy, that SRU officers are not indestructible, no matter how strong, well-armored, smart, or loved they are. And that meant my dad was walking into mortal danger. The danger felt more real to me now than on any call I'd ever heard him handle."

He made a conscious effort to control his breathing again. This was harder than he had dreamed it would be.

"It wasn't long before I heard him announce that he'd found the bomb. I heard him describe it to Spike, and Spike started explaining to him over the phone how to disarm it. Once again I was proud...but then I heard several shots ring out, and my dad hollered, "I'm under fire, it's him, he's here!" I heard more shots, much closer, and I knew my dad had returned fire."

He swallowed hard and wiped at his upper lip. "After that...my memory is just one horrible blur. I can't remember the exact sequence, but I kept hearing shots, and I kept hearing my father scream in pain." He no longer looked at the audience, but he could feel their tension. They were completely absorbed in his story.

"I heard my dad return fire sometimes, too. But I knew he'd been hit several times, and I knew that that radioactive bomb was still ticking down to the time it would explode. If it did...there was no way my dad would survive it. I would lose him, so soon after having found him again."

He wiped at his eyes this time. "The rest of the team was rushing from their various locations around the city to get to where my dad was, and Spike was still hollering at him over his headset to cut a certain wire. From where I was, I couldn't tell if he was able to get to the bomb or not. I only heard when he'd get shot again, when he'd scream in agony again, and when he'd fire back. It seemed to go on forever. Finally, he began to yell at the bomber, if you could call it a yell. His voice was strained, weak, horrible. But the words were full of good news. 'I stopped your bomb,' he said, along with a bunch of other things. And then I heard one last shot. And no cry of pain from my father. Nothing at all from him."

He paused, and this time it was partly emotional, partly for effect. He wanted the audience to feel the horrible silence that he'd endured after that last shot.

"Then I started hearing Eddie...Clark's dad, and officer Sam Braddock too, yelling for medics. Eddie started talking softly to my father...so softly that I knew he was right there with him. That's when I realized that Eddie must have shot the bomber. That's what the last shot had been that I heard. It was Eddie's."

Dean wiped another tear away. "I still didn't know if my father was alive. Eddie was pleading with him. 'No you don't, you're not going anywhere, we're not through yet..,' heartbreaking stuff like that. I couldn't think straight enough to even ask...or maybe I was afraid to ask, I don't know. But I called out toward Winnie's microphone, "Stay with me Dad..."

His voice broke, and he spent several long moments pulling himself back together.

"Finally, I heard my dad replying to Eddie in a barely-audible whisper. Eddie had started thanking my dad for stuff he'd done in the past, and my dad responded, letting Eddie know how much he meant to him. It was heartbreaking. It felt like 'goodbye.'

"I found out later that the bomber had been aiming his gun at my father from point-blank range, and my dad had been too badly injured to defend himself any more. If Eddie hadn't gotten there when he did, my dad would certainly be dead right now. Remember how close Eddie had come to staying with Clark instead of going back to work? Clark's unselfishness helped to save my father's life."

The applause, long and deafening, gave Dean some time to recover. But even after silence returned, he needed a few more long moments before he could speak again.

"But my father was gravely injured from multiple gunshot wounds, and it took him almost a year to recover as fully as he ever would. His leg injury left him permanently disabled and cost him the career that he loved. The loss was not only heartbreaking to him, but also a great misfortune for all of Toronto."

The audience responded with silence, but it was far from empty. Dean loved that he could feel thousands of hearts in the stillness.

"I had been sent back to Dallas to live with my Mom and stepdad just a few days after my dad was shot." Dean had debated with himself for using the term "stepdad" with Glen in the audience. He had never called him that in his presence before. But what else could he do, under the circumstances?

_I hope he understands!_

"So I didn't get to see the first several months of my father's convalescence. I didn't actually return to Toronto until just three months ago." He had no intention of even hinting at the family war in Dallas that had preceded his return to Canada.

"But even so, I saw enough of my dad's convalescence to learn a lot about perseverance, and about acceptance of loss, and about grace under the worst of circumstances. He tells me that his first few months had been really awful, and that it's probably a good thing that I didn't see how poorly he handled things then. But I have a feeling that he's being harder on himself than he ought to be."

The audience surprised him with a chuckle, and it made him smile.

"I want to let you know why I returned to Toronto three months ago. It was to celebrate the wedding of my father, Greg Parker, to Marina Levin. I have a new stepmom, and she's great. I told you I was a lucky guy!"

The crowd rose to its feet, and Dean realized that he loved public speaking now. This had been a profound experience. And when the applause died down, he was sad to realize he was coming to the end of his speech.

"So, in closing, I wanted to say that my father lives the truths that he spoke in his public address on the day of the bombing. He'd had no idea at the time how much he was about to go through, how much he was about to lose. But he can look back on that day with pride, and he has spent every day since then making the rest of us proud of him, and proud of the city he loves. So, even in the midst of our personal family heartaches, we can join in the theme of this celebration: Triumph after Tragedy!"

He left the podium to another standing ovation, but the joy drained out of the moment when he realized he wasn't going to walk into his father's arms the way Clark had.

He looked around, hoping his dad would find him. But though he received lots of touches and even a few hugs from the strangers around him, his dad didn't show up.

_This place is huge, and he's got a bad leg, and he knew I would be nervous if I saw him. He probably sat somewhere far away, and he couldn't fight the crowds now._ The rationale kept him from feeling slighted, but the ache of the unmet need persisted.

_I love you, Dad!_

Clark was no longer in his seat, but Dean had expected that. He would be with the orchestra now, tuning up in a back room and preparing for the "half-time" music in tonight's program. But there would be several more speakers before that.

Dean listened politely to the next speakers, but spent a lot of time searching for his relatives in the crowd. The speakers were probably quite good, but after the emotional roller coaster of his own presentation experience, he couldn't invest himself in deep, heart-level listening right now.

When the half-time break finally came, Dean actually stood on a chair to see better, but he still couldn't find any of his parents.

The orchestra shuffled in and got set up. After some 20 minutes, the first of several emotionally-laden songs began. People began returning to their seats, and many sang along.

Dean alternated between his usual crowd search and watching Clark play cello. He didn't know most of the songs, so he felt isolated in the crowd. It made him miss his dad more.

The second half of the program began at last, and the speakers were good, but Dean still couldn't give his full attention. He felt a little guilty about it sometimes, but mostly he just zoned out.

And then it was over at last. He went up and sat on the edge of the stage and waited to be found. He'd told his mom and Glen that that's what he would do. But he was quickly swarmed by well-wishers, and he wondered how his folks would ever get to him.

Clark and his parents stood in the center of a crowd of well-wishers, too.

Dean was getting exhausted. _And there's still Dad's retirement ceremony tomorrow! This is going to be way too much for one weekend!_

The crowd surrounding him began to part for some reason, and in a moment Dean knew why. His heart jumped for joy. The crowd had recognized his dad, and they were swarming him now, but they were also helping to propel him toward the son they knew he'd come to see. Marina was there, too, but of course the crowd didn't know her, and Dad was keeping a good hold on her arm so they wouldn't get separated.

Dean jumped down and hurried to him, and got his tearful bear hug at last. His world came into sharp focus again for the first time since he'd finished his speech. This was what mattered most.

The hug lasted long, and the loving conversation even longer. Nobody else mattered. Well, of course Marina did. Dean really did like her a lot.

But tonight was all about Dad, and Dean could see that she understood.

His dad said his leg was tired, and they excused themselves as they pressed back through the crowd, heading toward a seat.

On the way, Dean saw something that made his stomach lurch.

Mom and Glen. Standing right there in the cluster of well-wishers. Staring at dad.


	3. War Zone

Part 3 - War Zone

Dad had walked past Mom and Glen, only about ten feet distant when he passed them, without noticing them. He was now chatting with Marina and getting settled into his seat, about twenty feet away from them all.

Dean stood, frozen, his gaze rapidly alternating between his two sets of parents, the way he might have looked at a slow-motion film of two vehicles heading toward an inevitable crash.

But then Glen was at Dean's side, reaching for a hug. Dean gave it to him, and it took him a few moments to realize that he needed to relax with it.

_This is the moment I've been preparing for. I don't dare screw it up!_

Glen released him, and he looked over to his mom. She seemed tense, extremely uncomfortable, even. But then she, too, seemed to realize that she wanted to do a better job with the moment. She gave her full attention to Dean, keeping her back toward Dad.

_Has he seen them yet?_

He hugged his mom, but couldn't help looking over her shoulder at his dad.

Dad smiled at him with quiet patience, no doubt thinking Dean was merely being hugged by another well-wisher. That was no surprise, really. Dad had only seen Mom a handful of times in the past twelve years, and mostly from the front instead of the back. And of course he wasn't expecting her to be here anyway.

Mom's hug had been stiff and uncomfortable, and it only made Dean more miserable. He broke it off and began an awkward attempt to talk to her, while still sneaking frequent glances over her shoulder.

_What am I going to do if she goes ballistic and starts screaming? _His stomach knotted even more. _Why does she have to be such a jerk about him?_

Dad's expression changed slightly, and his eyes did that quick search of Dean's face that he always did when he wanted to look right into him. In this noisy setting, he wouldn't be able to hear anything from where he was, but he could sure see that something was wrong.

"So, Mom," Dean blurted out, forcing his focus to remain on her face. He felt like the top of his head could blow off at any second. "What did you think of my talk...and...and...and Clark's talk, too?" His voice sounded abnormally high-pitched, almost frantic.

"They were fine, dear. You were both very well prepared, and you presented your speeches very skillfully." In the good old days, she would have beamed joyfully at him. Now she seemed like a woman barely holding herself together.

Glen seemed more like himself than Mom did. "Dean, I'm proud of you. That was an amazing speech."

"Thanks...Dad."

_This is insane! What am I supposed to do?_

"So, Dean," his Mom continued, and she stepped with deliberate precision right into his line of sight to his father. "Your dad and I are staying at Shelby's, and you remember that we're flying out the day after tomorrow, right? So we're hoping that you'll come stay with us at Shelby's...they said you could use the hide-a-bed...and spend tomorrow with us."

"Um...sure...I mean...I can spend the day tomorrow, but tomorrow night is Dad's... Greg's... retirement ceremony. You know I'll be going to that. I told you I was."

"Yes, of course you are. But since you're staying in Canada for the foreseeable future, it only seems fair that you should spend as much time as you can with us while we're here." Her tone sounded challenging, almost accusing.

"Joanne," Glen broke in quietly, "there's no need to take that tone with him."

Dean gave him a thankful look.

"I don't think it's asking too much, Glen, do you?" she snapped.

Dean looked down at the floor. _Don't do this. Please don't do this!_

"No," Glen replied calmly, "and neither does he. He said he would spend the day with us, and there's no need to act as if he'd put up a fight about it. That's all I'm saying."

Dean became vaguely aware of something in his peripheral vision. He glanced over and saw that his father had risen to his feet and was staring at their little huddle with open concern.

"Dean, would you STOP!" His mother almost yelled it, and Dean jumped. "WE are the ones standing here, WE are the ones talking to you, and you need to stop looking over at HIM as if HE were the ONLY one who matters here! It is GLEN AND I who raised you, and did we ever get a speech in front of thousands of people for everything we did for you?"

"Joanne!" Glen sounded as shocked as Dean felt.

Dean had had it. "What's wrong with you?" He was nearly shouting now. "Why are you acting like this? I don't even know who you are anymore!"

He turned to stalk away, but stopped himself and turned back.

_Dad is coming._ His heart dropped, and he felt sick._ Now I get to watch them hate each other. Yell at each other. Embarrass me even more, totally ruining the greatest night I'd ever had. _ His breaths came quick and shallow.

He could hear horrible echoes of the times when Mom had opened the house door in Dallas and seen Greg. She'd always made him stay out of sight at those times. She'd taught him to be terrified of his father, made him hate the man. Now hundreds of people stood within earshot of her. What would they think of his father if they heard her spewing her shrill venom at him?

Dean realized that people were indeed staring, and he felt himself shrinking, blushing, nearly panicking. He thought he might vomit.

The crowd was moving away quickly, murmuring with clearly embarrassed surprise. And now, without them in the way, Dean could clearly see Ed and Sophie and Clark watching them from a distance with shocked expressions. The rest of Team One stood a little further off, but they also stared.

And here came Dad, his stride much slower than his bad leg required. His jaw had dropped, and he was looking at Joanne like she was a ghost. After a few more steps, he arrived at their huddle, and all eyes were fixed on him.

Mom's eyes shot cold daggers, and she shrunk away from Greg as if he carried some sort of dread disease.

Dad still didn't speak. But now he looked at Dean, and his expression changed from pure shock to confused betrayal. _You knew?_ His eyes asked.

Dean still couldn't manage more than the shallowest of breaths, and he needed several before he could answer his father's unspoken question.

"They wouldn't let me tell you they were coming. They made me promise, otherwise they wouldn't come. They weren't planning to meet up with you." He turned to glare at his mother now, not even trying to disguise his rage. "I wish I hadn't made that promise. I wish you hadn't come! This event meant everything to me, and you ruined it!" His eyes blurred with tears, but he didn't let them fall.

His mother folded her arms tightly and scoffed.

Dean shot a look at Glen, but his stepdad seemed sorrowful rather than angry.

Somewhere deep inside, Dean really appreciated that fact, but right now he could only push the non-threatening family member out of his thoughts and focus on the war that was surely about to erupt between his flesh-and-blood parents.

Glen put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and at almost the same moment his father put a hand on the other one. But it was his stepdad who spoke, forcefully. "Joanne, he's right. I don't know what's happened to you, but you're being really unfair to Dean, and you owe him an apology."

"Thank you, Glen." Dad's voice was an eloquent blend of quiet gratitude and amazement. He looked at Glen intently now, openly appraising him, and seemed to like what he saw.

"You're siding with HIM?" Mom jerked a thumb at Dad, her face a mask of outrage. "He's getting all the best from the boy you raised, the boy HE abandoned in favor of booze, and you're okay with that?"

"Joanne!" both men responded in unison.

Dean couldn't take it any more. There were still members of the public gawking at them from a distance, and his mom had just shamed his father in front of them. Told his darkest secret. Erased all the honor Dean had done him.

Dean turned and stumbled away, hot tears spilling past his defenses now. He could vaguely hear Glen's heated response to his mother, but he didn't care anymore. He just had to get away. His brisk pace had already taken him a healthy distance, but it wasn't enough. He started to break into a run.

"Dean, wait up. I can't go that fast," Dad's voice called, and Dean stopped reluctantly. He didn't turn to face his dad, because that would have meant facing both the war zone and the gawkers. Instead he brushed his tears away with an angry hand and, by sheer force of will, dammed up the many that had not yet fallen.

His dad soon reached him, huffing slightly.

"Thank you, Son. I appreciate you stopping."

Dean kept his face turned away, and turned it further as his Dad moved around to the front of him. The back-pressure of his withheld tears made his breath catch in a quick sob.

"Oh, Son..." his Dad whispered with heartbreaking compassion. He put his hands on Dean's shoulders and held him from turning away completely, then tried gently to catch his eyes. "Son, I'm so sorry. This was wrong. It shouldn't have happened. You did such an amazing thing tonight, Son. You made me weep with the joy of what you said. It was the most beautiful tribute imaginable. Please, please..." he still kept trying to establish eye contact, and his voice remained at a meltingly gentle near-whisper.

Dean's chest heaved again, but he didn't accept his father's invitation. He still kept his face turned away.

Dad didn't force it.

"Dean, I love you so much, Son..."

The dam broke, and Dean let his father pull him into his arms as he let his angry sobs escape. He didn't intend to let himself release all of them, not by a long shot, but he would vent enough to keep himself from exploding.

"Glen's really standing up for you, buddy." Dad kept him hugged close, and sometimes patted his back. "He's a great guy, isn't he? I'm glad I got to see that, at least."

Dean pulled away to stand on his own again, angrily brushing the last released tears away. "She humiliated you, Dad!"

"What?" His dad angled for eye contact again, and at last Dean met his gaze. "No, Son, she didn't humiliate me." He ran his hands over Dean's shoulders before giving them another squeeze. "She humiliated herself. I'm fine. Don't you worry about me."

"She talked about your drinking in front of people, Dad!"

"What she said was true, Son. It's a truth I've had to learn to live with."

"But she didn't say anything about you being better now! She acted like that's who you still are!""

Dad offered him a rueful smile. "And Glen is letting her know how wrong she was to say the things she said. And if it makes you feel better, you and I are showing the onlookers what sort of relationship we have. That's not why I'm here, but if it helps you to think of it that way, I'm glad."

It did help, a little. But now that the tears had been shed, his remaining anger was hardening back into a bitter rage. "If she thinks I'm going to go stay with her this weekend..." His words forced their way out between furiously tightened lips. His nostrils flared.

Dad looked quickly down, his expression instantly recognizable. It said, _"I disagree with you, but I'm going to figure out how to speak my mind without getting in your face about it."_

Dean could hardly believe it. He felt his shoulders firming under his father's hands as he prepared to resist his words.

Dad felt it too, quite obviously. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. When he opened his eyes again, he kept them thoughtfully lowered. His hands were still gentle on Dean's shoulders. He was not going to accept an invitation to battle, any more than he was going to provoke one.

"Dean, you don't know how badly I hurt her."

"It doesn't matter anymore!" he blurted. "That's ancient history, and this is _now_!"

Dad nodded. "Oh I know, I know...it's wrong of her not to be willing to give me credit for the changes I've made...for who I've become. It's wrong of her to hurt you for loving me, Dean. Very wrong. And I'll be honest with you...I'm really having to struggle with my own anger right now because of how badly she hurt you tonight."

Dean quickly looked back at his father's face, wanting to see that struggle for himself. It _was_ there, betrayed as much by the knotted jaw muscles as by the subtle anger that had crept into his voice.

But his dad's eyes were soft, and after allowing himself to be inspected for a few moments, he lifted his gaze back to Dean's.

"Tell me what you would hope to accomplish by snubbing her for the rest of this trip, Dean."

"Accomplish?" he scoffed, suddenly angry again. "It's not about accomplishing anything. I just don't want anything to do with her. I'm not going to be her whipping boy, no way." He was the one who looked away now, working his jaw in his frustration. "I don't even know who she is anymore."

Dad nodded, and his demeanor shifted subtly. Dean felt it and instantly read it. Dad had found Dean's point of weakness, though Dean couldn't begin to imagine what it was. He only knew that his father now radiated the quiet confidence of a man who knew what to do, knew he was right, and was now operating from a position of strength.

Dean felt himself preparing to admit defeat almost instinctively. He didn't understand the tide change, but he knew it would sweep him away.

Dad was amazing that way.

"Think about what you just said, son," Dad began, and his eyes now held Dean in a grip that was both gentle and masterful. "There's some important truth in it."

"What?" Dean asked quietly.

"You don't know who she is right now, because she's not herself. We've all had times when we're not ourselves, and those aren't the moments that we should be judged by." He squeezed Dean's shoulders. "When I was lost in alcohol, I wasn't myself, either. And you refuse to judge me by who I was then. It means the world to me that you've let me put my worst times behind me, and you've loved me anyway, Son. I think that, if you'd showed up at SRU headquarters for the first time and treated me as a hopeless drunk, it would have devastated me. I can't even find the words for what your love means to me, Dean."

Dad cupped a hand on the back of Dean's neck. "Dean-o, your love has done more than make me feel better in some vague, warm-fuzzy way. Do you know that I probably would not be married to Marina right now if not for you?"

Dean's brow furrowed. "What? No way!"

Dad shook his head. "I'm not kidding you, Son. I was a complete failure as a husband to your mother and as a father to you, and no matter how much my friends tried to get me to forgive myself, I couldn't do it. I rarely ever dated, and I refused to date any one woman for very long, because I saw myself as a walking relational failure." His eyes took on a warm, faraway look. "Poor Jules. I used to frustrate her something awful, because she kept trying to play matchmaker for me. I loved her for it, but I wasn't about to succumb." He turned his gaze back to Dean. "I refused to believe I could be worth any woman's attention. And if the woman had a kid...it didn't matter how much I liked her, I would break off the relationship because I was so afraid I would hurt that kid somehow, like I hurt you. And besides, like I told Eddie once, what was I doing enjoying someone else's kid when I didn't even know my own? I was trapped in guilt and fear, Son."

Dean felt suddenly shy, hearing his father's painfully honest self-disclosure. He found that he could no longer look his father in the eye.

Dad's hand, still cupping his neck, drew him closer until their foreheads almost touched. "But when you came back into my life, gave me another chance, accepted me, learned to love me, you helped me redefine myself, Son."

He released Dean's neck and put his hands back on his shoulders. Their eyes met and held.

"When Marina made it clear that she was interested in me, I did my best to push her away. Jules fought me on it, and Marina was persistent, but those two things alone wouldn't have done it. I'd fought off that kind of thing plenty of times before."

Dean smiled despite himself.

"Do you know why I decided to give it a chance, Dean? Because you had redefined me as a father, and that helped me to believe that I might have a chance as a husband, too."

Dean hardly knew how to respond. He wanted to look away from the tenderness of this moment, but yet he didn't want to, too.

"Love heals, Dean. And losing love is devastating. Losing your mom's love, and your love for all those years, nearly did me in." His voice held Dean captive with its quiet power to open his heart. But then the tide turned again.

The gentleness remained, but it masked a surgical strike. It conquered, yet somehow made defeat a beautiful thing.

"Did you hear the fear behind your mother's words tonight, Dean? She is not as angry with me as you think she is. Do you want to know what's going on with her? She's terrified of losing your love. Terrified that Glen will lose your love. Terrified, yes, that this monster she imagines me to be will hurt you...but haven't you ever wondered why she insists on keeping me a monster in her imagination, despite all of the evidence and all of your pleas? It's because she wants to keep you from loving me, Dean. She's afraid that, if you love me, you'll hate her for having left me, for having deprived you of me all these years. She's probably afraid that you won't believe what a lousy father I really was...and I _really was_, Dean."

Dean's heart began to ache. He looked down, but his father cupped his neck and brought their foreheads close again. His voice grew so soft that Dean strained to hear it.

"All this time, since you and I have been back together, you've felt the need to make your mom see that I'm a changed man. You've felt the need to try to reconcile us to at least a civil tolerance of one another. And that's a wonderful desire, Dean. I understand it, and I appreciate it. I want those things, too. But your efforts backfire every time, and now I think I know why.

He gave Dean's neck a gentle squeeze. "Why do you suppose she was so awful tonight? It's because tonight, for the first time, she saw just how deep your love and admiration for me really go. And the more she sees you loving me, and fighting for the love of me, the more she's afraid of losing you."

Dean swallowed a huge lump in his throat.

"She loves you, Dean. She loves you so much. And she really was right to take you away from me back then. She was protecting you, loving you the best way she could in the middle of a terrible situation. She really does deserve all of your honor and love for the way that she's been there for you all these years. Glen does, too."

Dean began to fidget, and his dad let go of him. But Dean made no move to put distance between them.

"Keep fighting the good fight, Dean. Keep fighting to build the love amongst all of your family members. It's a noble thing to do. But it won't work if you fight to make her love me or even accept me. What you need to do is fight your anger right now and make up your mind to love her and Glen just as much as before...even with me in your life, even with her being ugly about it all. Let her know that it's safe for her to let you love me...not by telling her how great I am. She can haul up too much evidence against that. Let her feel safe in the guarantee of your unchanging love, Dean."

Dean felt a new fear welling up in his soul. "But...but...what are you saying? Are you saying you want me to go back and live with them? Are you saying..."

Dad interrupted with a vigorous shake of his head. "No. No way. You have to be true to yourself. You are my son now, not just in your genes, but in your heart. I'm not asking you to change that, or pretend it's not real. It would break my heart if you did. You are also, truly, your mom's son, and Glen's son, too. And you're learning to be Marina's son too, for that matter, though the whole dynamic there is completely different."

"Then..." Dean wrestled with his thoughts for a few moments, while his dad gave him the space he needed.

"Then...what would this 'good fight' look like?" he asked at last.

"What it looks like is simply this, Son. When you're with them...and yes, you need to _want _to be with them..."

"How can I do that, when she's being such a jerk?" he blurted.

"By remembering that she's not herself right now, and remembering who she really is. You've told me before that she's a really good mom in every way, as long as nobody mentions me. You can love and honor that person, can't you?"

"Not if she's gone."

Dad insisted on catching his gaze again. "She's not gone, Dean. She's not. She's still there, and it's your love that can give her the opportunity to come back."

Dean chewed his lip.

"Now, I won't lie to you, Son. I can't promise that she'll come back, though I believe that she will. But loving well is its own reward, kiddo. You know in your heart how love feels, and how hate feels. Which one would you rather feed your soul on every day?"

Dean drew in a slow, deep breath.

"You are not responsible for whether or not she accepts me. You are not responsible for whether or not she becomes her old self. Only she can make those things happen. But you are responsible for opening the door of your heart, putting out the welcome mat, and sweeping it off whenever it gets mud on it. An invitation may not bring her back, but she definitely won't come back without it."

Dean fought another silent inner battle.

"So," he concluded after a minute or so, "you think I should go to Shelby's with them tonight."

"Do you think you should?"

Dean looked into his father's eyes, searching for...not an answer, exactly...searching for the heart and soul that would turn his own heart the way it needed to go.

"And...if I go with them tonight, what should I do?"

"If you're with them, Son, let it be _about_ them. Invite them to enjoy something with you that you used to do together. Sit them down and talk to them...not about me, but about your love and commitment to them no matter what they think of me. If you feel the need, tell them honestly and briefly how I fit into your life, because that's yours to determine, not theirs. But share it respectfully, and then drop the subject. Be with them, Son. Enjoy them, or at least be _willing_ to enjoy them. Let them enjoy you. Give them your heart. You won't regret it, no matter how they respond."

Dean thought about the idea, pictured it in action, hefted it to see if it felt substantive enough to meet his needs.

And then he reached for a hug. A long, tight bear hug, wholeheartedly returned.

"I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, Dean. And I'm so, _so_ proud of you."

They started to turn back, but then it dawned on Dean that a lot of time had passed. He had no idea what to expect when he turned around, and he was a little afraid to find out.

_If they've left, and they're angry, will they even want me to come over?_

He squared his shoulders. _Open the door and put out the welcome mat. That's my only job. And I can do that._

With his dad by his side, he turned to see what awaited him.


	4. Tribute

Part 4 - Tribute

Dean turned and surveyed the nearly-empty stadium. Cleaning crews bustled about. Workers were starting to disassemble the podium. Others carried the orchestra's chairs away.

Glen sat on a front-row seat, chatting with Marina, apparently at ease.

Mom was nowhere to be seen.

Dad threw an arm across Dean's shoulder, and they walked toward their loved ones together.

Dean realized that, even though Dad was using his cane, a bit of Dad's weight was also pressing into his shoulder with each step. It dawned on him how long his father had stood there, helping to rescue his heart from its crisis.

Dean started to feel guilty for having kept his Dad on his legs for so long, but then a new feeling rose to take its place.

_He said that loving well is its own reward. And he does it, he loves well. This time it hurt him, but it was worth it to him, and he's happy he did it. He wouldn't want me to feel guilty._

Dean began to enjoy the chance to return the favor, to help bear his dad's weight, to serve his father in even this small way.

_I want to love like he does._

As soon as Glen noticed their approach, he rose to his feet with a warm smile. Dad sat down beside Marina as soon as he could, but Dean had another priority.

He met Glen's gaze, returned his warm smile, and walked into his arms. The hug touched something in both their hearts, and their eyes were moist when they stepped apart. Glen kissed the top of Dean's head and tousled his hair.

"I'm so sorry for what she did to you, Dean. She had no right to spoil such a special event, and I'm hoping that your father was able to help you salvage it."

Dean looked at him with some amazement.

"I was watching the two of you, and the love between you was obvious. It was also very obvious that whatever he was saying was good for you. I'm glad."

Dean's heart filled. "Thanks." He looked around a little bit, trying not to be too obvious about it. "Um...where is Mom?"

"I sent her back to your Aunt Shelby's. She took the rental car. I'll catch a cab later. But I just couldn't leave without seeing you and trying to help. And I'll admit, I enjoyed seeing how your father was with you. It did my heart good to know that I can really trust him with you."

"You can. Definitely."

Dean turned and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Glen, and put an arm around his waist. His stepdad quickly returned the embrace.

In this moment, without the tension his mom had brought to the situation, Dean could clearly remember all of the wonderful times he'd had with Glen, and could easily feel the old, effortless camaraderie. And the sight of both his dads in comfortable proximity felt like a slice of Heaven.

Dad sat, one hand clasped with Marina's, smiling contentedly at Dean and his stepdad.

After a moment, Glen gave Dean a squeeze and then released him. He walked over to Dad, who started to stand to greet him.

"No, no, no, don't get up." Glen smiled and extended a hand down for Dad to shake.

Dad accepted it warmly, shook it slowly, and released it in no hurry. His expressive face clearly told Dean that he was trying to hide some amusement at Glen's thick Texas drawl.

"I'm so glad to finally meet you, Glen. I hadn't actually planned my visits for when you wouldn't be home, but that's the way it worked out every time. I wish I'd timed it better."

Glen looked down for a moment, and he seemed a little sheepish when he made eye contact with Dad again. "Look, since there's been a lot of brutal honesty today, I have to tell you that I wouldn't have greeted you as warmly as you deserved back then. I didn't know who you really were. Now that I have a better idea of you, I think very highly of you, Greg. I wish we lived closer to each other, because I'm glad that Dean has you back in his life. I just wish that sharing him with you didn't mean having him so far away. He's a fine young man, and I miss him."

Dad's eyes grew very moist. "Thank you, Glen. I couldn't have dreamed that I'd ever hear that from you. It's a gift I treasure, my friend." He took a lingering look at Dean before returning his attention to Glen. "And yes, I know all about missing that young man...for most of his life."

Dad averted his gaze and struggled with his emotions for a moment. But when he turned his gaze back, he made no attempt to hide those emotions from Glen. "He is turning out so wonderfully, and believe me, Glen, I know that you get far more credit for that than I ever will."

"Joanne and I," Glen corrected. "Please don't let tonight make you think she's a monster all the time. She's usually wonderful, and it's just her...her pain about...about having you back in our family that's making her crazy. She really is a good woman, most of the time, and I love her."

Dad really struggled now, but this time he didn't look away. He seemed to search Glen's face for permission to speak his thoughts aloud.

_I've never known anyone that I can read as well as I can read him. _ Part of that, Dean knew, was a natural result of his father's transparency. But part of it seemed to come from a bond that went deeper than the few years they'd had together. _There's more to being his son than living in his house and calling him 'Dad.' We're a part of each other._

Dad seemed to have come to a decision about speaking his mind. His words came out softly, but without apology, and he kept unflinching eye contact with Glen. "I know what it is...what it _was_...to love Joanne, too. She is a good woman, and I'm glad you have each other."

Glen shook his head slowly. "Greg, it took a lot of courage to say that, and I admire you for it." He turned to look back at Dean. "I see you in him, now. I've always admired his sensitivity, his courage, his sense of honor...and he had those things in seed form even when he was little. I hadn't heard good enough things about you to recognize how much of it came from you. But it's clear as can be, now. You have a lot more to do with the quality of this young man than you give yourself credit for."

Dean let that thought settle deep into his soul, savoring the pride and the joy that it gave him. _Dad's a part of me. I'm a part of him. And nobody can take that away from us now._

Dad responded to Glen with a sort-of gasp. A few tears spilled over, and he made no attempt to hide them. "Glen...you can't imagine what those words mean to me. Thank you!"

Marina hugged Dad's arm. She brushed away tears as well, and echoed Dad's thanks.

"I've always known," Glen continued, "that Dean felt a strong connection to Canada, and he had no intention of ever really being a Texan."

"How did you know that?"

"Well it's obvious, isn't it? Little kids can pick up accents as easily as they can pick up sticks. But Dean never stopped sounding like a Canuck, no matter how much grief the other kids gave him. Until now, I thought it was just his loyalty to a place. But now I'd bet the bank that it's his loyalty to you."

Dad's jaw dropped, and he turned to stare at Dean. "It never occurred to me..." he mused aloud. "I mean...he just sounded normal to me. It never occurred to me that it was odd that he still sounded like he'd lived his whole life here."

Glen stuck his hand out to shake Dad's hand again. "I really do need to get back to Joanne. This has been a very hard day for her. I want to help her through it. But I'm so glad I got to know you a little better, Greg. You're a good man."

Dad stood up this time, but he didn't accept Glen's offered handshake.

Instead, he reached for a hug, and after a second of surprise, Glen returned it.

Dean could hardly bear the beauty of that moment. Never in a million years could he have imagined such a sight.

The two men broke off their hug, but Dad put his hands on Glen's shoulders for a few more moments.

Dean brushed tears away and walked shyly up to his two dads. "Um...Dad?" He directed his gaze to Glen, so they'd know which Dad he meant. Right now his love for both men made it impossible to deny either of them that title of honor.

"Yes, Son?"

"Umm...don't bother calling a cab. I'll drive you. I want to go to Shelby's tonight."

Glen's eyebrows shot up. "You do?"

Dean smiled and glanced at his father's smiling face. "Yeah, I think Mom needs to know that I love her."

This time it was Glen who gasped. "Thank you, Son. That's...that's wonderful."

Dean shrugged. "Dad helped me."

Glen nodded. He put a hand on Dad's shoulder for a moment in silent acknowledgment, and then patted it a few times. He seemed too choked up to say anything right now.

A final shoulder-squeeze, and he let Dad go. "All right, Son. Let's go see your mom."

Dean said, "Just a minute." He walked quickly to his father and hugged him hard. Then he gave a quick kiss to Marina, and walked away with Glen.

He couldn't help looking back a few times as they walked. For quite a while, Dad and Marina still stood where he'd left them, watching him go.

Dean drove in silence for the first several minutes. It was Glen who broke the silence. "You seem to know the way to Shelby's just fine, don't you? I guess Toronto really has become your second home."

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Actually, it was my first home. Dallas is my second." As soon as he said it he regretted it. "I'm sorry, Dad. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, that's okay," Glen replied. "It's part of who you are, and I'm not going to ask you to pretend otherwise."

"Thanks," Dean replied after a moment. "And...thanks for being so great with my Dad. I can't tell you what it means to me."

"I meant what I said. He's a good man, and I'm proud to know him."

As they pulled into Shelby's driveway, Dean made a request. "Dad, could you do me a favor? I don't want you to come down on Mom for what she did tonight. And I don't want you to say anything about how much you enjoyed meeting Dad...at least not yet."

"Oh? What do you have in mind?"

"Dad told me that Mom is just scared of losing my love. He said she doesn't need to hear me defending him. She needs to hear me loving her, and you. She needs to know that that won't change. And I'm committed to letting her know that."

Glen shook his head. "You amaze me, Son." He gestured toward the front door. "Lead the way, Buddy. I'll follow."

When Dean walked in, the first thing he saw was his mother weeping on the couch, with Shelby comforting her. Both women looked up at him with obvious surprise that he'd come.

"Hey Mom." He paused, feeling awkward. She seemed almost angered by the sight of him. But then Dad's voice echoed in his memory.

_Do you see her fear, Son?_

He walked over to the open seat on the couch and put his arms around his mother. "I love you, Mom."

She felt stiff in his arms...but only for a moment. Then she was holding him tightly and weeping on his shoulder.

"Mom, I understand why you left Dad, and why you took me away from him. You needed to. You did the right thing. You were taking care of me, and I love you for it, Mom."

"Oh, Baby..." She was sobbing now.

"I promise, I won't keep trying to make you like him, or forgive him, or anything. I'd be really glad if you did, but I'm not going to push you. You're my mom, and Glen is my dad. And Greg is my dad, too. And I love all of you, Mom. _All_ of you. And I'm going to keep loving all of you no matter what. If you don't forgive him, I'll still love you. If you choose to never see him again, I'll still love you. And I'll still love Dad." He nodded toward Glen, already having developed a habit of clarifying whom he meant when he used that title. "And I'll still love Greg. There's room in my heart for all of you, Mom. No matter what."

She took his face in her hands and kissed his cheeks.

"And no matter how many good things I feel about Greg, I will love you and Dad just the same, Mom. That's my promise."

"Can you still love me after I ruined your special evening? I feel so awful about it, Dean!"

"Yeah, Mom. It's okay. I know you were just scared. I've forgiven you."

"Thank you, Son."

"And also...about something you said tonight...the fact is, I easily could have written a tribute to you and Glen. It's just that Toronto didn't ask for one. It doesn't mean that I don't think you're a hero...heroine...whatever...for taking care of me all these years. And I know Glen's a hero for becoming my father and being awesome at it."

"Then why...why would you rather live with Greg...?"

"Joanne..." Glen protested quietly.

"Mom...look at it this way. You were right to separate me from Dad for the years when he wasn't a good father. I don't resent it in the least. And acknowledging that Dad is not the same man...well, that doesn't change things between me and you at all. I can love who he is _now _without resenting you for protecting me from who he was _then_. Okay? Are we good?"

"I guess." She wiped tears away and managed a smile. "I mean...I'll try. Please keep your promise...don't try to push me into seeing him, okay Son?"

"That's what I said, and I meant it."

"Okay, I'll hold you to that. I still don't trust him not to hurt you, Baby, but I guess you're man enough to cope with that, considering how well you've coped with tonight."

"Good." Dean was getting pretty desperate for a break from the intense emotion in the room. His gaze fell on the dining room table, and it brought a good memory to mind. "Hey, why don't we play some Uno?"

An hour and a half later, Dean settled down on the hide-a-bed with a joyful memory of fun and of laughter with his mother, his stepdad, his aunt and uncle and cousins...on this night, of all nights, when he'd almost decided to run to his dad's house and nurse his rage.

When all the lights were out, Dean grabbed his phone and began typing rapidly. A moment later he saw his stepdad come back out into the living room with him.

"What do you need, Dad?" Dean sat up to face him.

"Well, Son...there's something I need to say to you." He sat down beside Dean and put an arm around his shoulders. "Dean, there are two kinds of tributes a man can give to his dad. One is through words, and you did an incredible job of that at the stadium tonight. But there's another way that means even more. It carries more weight. A tribute of words might be made up, phony. But the tribute of a life is always real." He moved further to the edge of his seat so he could face Dean more squarely. "Son, the way you carried yourself tonight is the finest tribute you could ever give your dad. It was a tribute to yourself, absolutely, and also perhaps a bit of a tribute to me. But what I saw in this living room tonight was something I couldn't have led you to do. I know it was the result of that amazing talk you and your father shared at the stadium. I saw him in you at this house tonight, and you did him proud. Did me proud, too, but that's not the point I wanted to make right now."

He squeezed Dean's shoulder. "So, Son, I'm going to say the same thing about you that I said about your dad. You're a fine man, Dean, and I'm proud to know you...as a man. You're not a boy anymore. You're a man that any father could be proud of, and both your fathers are."


	5. Epilogue

Epilogue

Greg settled into his bed and reached to turn out the light.

"I'm exhausted, Marina. But I can't complain about how I got that way."

"I'm so proud of you, and of Dean, I could just burst," she replied, snuggling into his side.

"Yeah, it turned out fantastic." He rolled on this side to face her and ran his arm around her waist. "I'm especially glad that I got to meet Glen. He's all right."

"Yes, I enjoyed our talk while we waited for you and Dean to come back."

"What did you talk about?"

Just then, Greg's phone vibrated on the nightstand.

He groaned. "Crud, I always do that! I meant to tell it not to vibrate!" He rolled over and picked it up, and despite himself he checked it. He really didn't want to engage any more tonight, at least not in a way that involved staying awake.

But the words he saw made him smile.

"2nite went awesome. Thx dad."

He read it to Marina, and then composed his reply. "Proud of you. Love you." He couldn't bring himself to substitute "u" for "you."

He set it back on the nightstand, and it vibrated again a moment later.

"I can't believe I still left it on vibrate mode!" He laughed as he picked it up, but then his brow furrowed. "It's not from Dean. I don't recognize this phone number."

The message read, "Dean gave me your number. Hope it's ok. Thank you for everything. I count you my friend. Glen."

Greg's eyes misted over, and he handed the phone to Marina to read.

"Awww, that's priceless."

She handed it back, and he composed his reply.

"Dean is lucky to have you. And now, so am I."


End file.
